more name for you,' Sola said. 'Var?Var the Stick.' Neq had some vague recollection of such a warrior, a helper to the Weaponless who had disappeared at the same time. 'He will know where to find the Weaponless?' 'He must know,' she said fervently. 'He was the protege of my husband, and sterile like him.' Neq wondered how she could know such a thing. But he remembered the rumors about this woman, and how she had gone to Sos's tent in the badlands camp, and wondered again. 'I will seek Sosa,' he said. 'And Var the Stick.' 'And my child?Soli. She would be thirteen now, almost fourteen. Dark-haired. And?' She hesitated. 'You remember the way I used to be?' 'Yes.' Her figure had stimulated him many times, fifteen years ago. 'She favors me, I think.' Soli would be a beauty, then. Neq nodded. 'I will send them all to the crazies?if they live.' 'I will wait there.' And for some reason she was crying. Perhaps it was the weakness of an old woman who knew she would never see her husband or her daughter again; who knew that their bones lay charred and buried near the mountain of death. Dick the Surgeon located several of the strangely-named fugitives in the next few months. Men like John and Charles and Robert, men old and feeble and obviously unused to the way of the nomads despite their recent years among them. Some were refugees from Helicon; others seemed to be crazies, cut off by the breakdown of civilization. Dick talked to them, and glimmers of hope brightened their forlorn faces and they agreed to come with Neq?to Neq's suppressed disgust. Now he had to forage for them, and guard them against outlaws, for they were almost unable to do for themselves and could not make the trek to Dr. Jones alone. A man with no hands taking care of men with no gumption! But these creatures had survived because they had talents certain tribes wanted?literary, hand skills, knowledge of guns. Most of the names on his list seemed not to have survived; no doubt they belonged to bones he had swept in Helicon. When he could, he inquired about his other names: Var, Sosa, Soli. But there was no memory of these among the nomads?not since the destruction of Helicon. Finally he brought his small group back to the crazy building. Almost a year had passed.
* * *
'You are still determined to rebuild Helicon?' Dr. Jones inquired. 'Yes.' He did not add in spite of you. 'You did not locate all the persons listed.' 'I have not finished. I merely deliver these to you, who could not deliver themselves. Many of the rest are dead. You saw Tyl and Sola?' 'They are here.' So Tyl had remained! What had the crazy said to him? 'I have not found the Weaponless?but now I search for his underground wife, Sosa, and for Sola's child, and for Var the Stick. These may help me to locate him?or his cairn.' 'Interesting you should mention those names,' Dr. Jones murmured. 'You are illiterate, as I recall.' 'I am a warrior.' 'The two abilities?reading and fighting?are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Some warriors are literate. But you have no notion of the content of the papers you delivered to us?' 'None.' 'Let me read some excerpts to you, then.' And the old crazy brought a similar sheaf up from the bowels of his desk. AUGUST 4, B118?The siege has abated, but the mood is ominous. Bob has arranged some kind of contest of champions, but has as yet selected no man to represent Helicon. We are not geared for this nomad circle-combat; it is folly. We have in Sol the Nomad one of the most formidable primitive fighters of the age, but I know he will not take up weapon against his own kind. He hates it here; he really did come to die, and he resents what we did to him: making him live because we made his daughter live. Sosa has kept him pacified somehow; I don't know how that marvelous woman does it. Sol's daughter is his life. But I ramble too much about other people's business, as an old bookworm will. Surely I have concerns of my own: this premonition that this is the terminus, the extinction of the life we have known, and perhaps of civilization itself.... 'The mountain!' Neq exclaimed. 'The siege of Helicon!' 'These notes are by Jim the Librarian?a literate and sensitive man.' 'He is on my list! A man of the underworld!' 'Yes, of course. But it will not be necessary to look for him further.' 'To rebuild!' Neq cried, comprehending what should have been obvious all along. 'The men who knowl' 'Certainly. Obviously nomads could not rebuild the foreign technology of Helicon unassisted, however noble their motives. But a nucleus of such survivors, together with the most capable nomads and, er, crazies, under a strong, sincere leader?it can be done, we suspect.' Dr. Jones looked at him with compassion. 'I hope you will not be disappointed that we do not deem you fit to lead the actual restoration. What you are attempting is noble, and you shall certainly receive due credit for your dedication and effort; but the complexities of technology and discipline?' 'No, you are right,' Neq said with mixed emotions. He was disappointed, but also relieved. 'I never thought to stay in Helicon myself. I saw the carnage?only crazies could like it there, away from the sun, the trees?' As he spoke he realized why Tyl had been on the list. They needed strong and competent leadership, and Tyl was that. He had been second in command to the Weaponless, and before that to Sol of All Weapons. He had as much experience in managing men as any nomad, and he was a top warrior who never let discipline slide. The underworld would be a kind of empire. 'I'm glad you understand. Training and temperament are paramount. In a pressure situation where swords and clubs are not the answer?' 'But the Weaponless?he destroyed Helicon! Why should he help it now?' Yet obviously Dr. Jones wasn't depending entirely on the Weaponless. He was grooming Tyl as an alternate. 'Sos the Weaponless was of Helicon. Dr. Abraham made him what he was, on the unfortunate directive of their leader.' Dr. Jones cogitated for a moment. 'Dr. Abraham was not aware of the polities leading to the disaster. He was sleeping when the fire started, and dazed when he escaped. He supposed the nomads had done it.' 'Hadn't they?' Leading question! 'Not directly. Here is Jim's final entry.' AUGUST 8, B118?How can I express the horror I feel? Soli was my child too, in the sense that I taught her to read and I loved her as my own. Almost daily she came to the library, an absolutely charming little girl?indeed, I believe she divided her time almost evenly between my books and her father's weapons. Yet now? I blame myself. She came to me in tears just three days ago with a story I refused to credit: that Bob intended to murder both Sol and Sosa, her Helicon parents, if she did not go on a dangerous mission outside. She had been sworn to secrecy, she claimed, lest they be slain regardless?but she had to tell someone, and I agreed to keep her confidence, thinking it a fantasy of a juvenile mind. I advised her that she had misunderstood, that Bob had the best interest of Helicon at heart, and had only meant that her parents' lives might be endangered, as we are all endangered, by this continuing nomad siege. I recommended that she agree to the secret mission, for surely (if it were not a product of her own lively imagination) it was merely a device to get her safely from the scene of action before another crisis occurred. 'We value our children most of all,' I informed her fatuously. Now she is dead, and I deplore my hopeless naivete. Bob sent her to Mt. Muse, to engage in physical combat with the nomad champion, and of course the brute killed her. The nomads are celebrating; we can overhear their foul carousing. 'Var the Stick!' they cry?but I don't believe they realize that their precious barbarian champion, shielded from their view on the flattop mesa a dozen miles south of here?was pitted against an eight year old girl. Confound the promise of secrecy I made! I have told Sosa what Soli told me. I had to, for Sosa is more the mother of that dear girl than her nomad dam could ever have been. Sosa would have learned of it soon enough, less sympathetically. I am sure she will relay it to Sol, and I do not speculate what will develop now. Were I a warrior-type in such a situation I am sure I would not be gentle. But I am only a futile old man. I am taking poison. There was a pause. 'Var the Stick?he was the nomad champion? He killed Sol's child?' 'So it would appear. If you were Sol?' 'I am a warrior- type! I would have put Var's head on a spike in the forest for all to see. And Bob's. And all others responsible. And?' Dr. Jones steepled his hands in a way he had. 'And...?' 'And accomplished nothing,' Neq said slowly. 'Vengeance is not the answer. It is only vengeance. Only more sorrow.' Dr. Jones nodded. 'I believe you are in a position to comprehend Sol's motives, then and later. He was a thorough nomad, despite his residence in Helicon for those years. Would he have ignited the incendiary stores there?' 'I don't know about that,' Neq said, not understanding one of the words. 'But I think there was gasoline down there. And other stuff that would burn. I think he fired it all. In the name of vengeance. Those bodies were scorched!' And more than scorched. 'And later?would he have returned?' 'To view the destruction, after he knew it had accomplished nothing? No, he would not return....' 'Yes. Yet if we were to rebuild Helicon, how could we be certain that such a thing would not happen again?' 'I do not know,' Neq said honestly. 'Go and find out,' Dr. Jones said. 'But you agreed to help if I brought you these people!' 'And we shall. But of what use is it to rebuild Helicon if it remains liable to destruction by the forces that brought it down before? The human forces.' Neq had no answer for that. 'Forget the remaining names on the list,' Dr. Jones said kindly. 'The nucleus is almost sufficient now. Look instead for Sol and Sosa and Var, should he somehow have survived Sol's quest for vengeance. Learn whether Sos the Weaponless was more directly involved; perhaps his disappearance is relevant. Ascertain the truth?and suggest how we may prevent any conceivable recurrence. Only then will we be assured that our endeavor is secure.'
CHAPTER TWELVE
